Mute

Isn’t it amazing that you can still confuse some people by just turning their phones to silent when they’re out of the office, and the bloody thing keeps ringing?

Even after [cough] years with mobiles, some people just still don’t know how to silence them. Thankfully, some of us do know how to do so…


GPS Question

A question for those of you who have a GPS system.

Where do you put it in the car?

By which I mean where on the windscreen, of course.

When I’m using it, the GPS/Satnav goes down on the bottom right-hand corner of the window. There I can see it without having to take my eyes too far off the road, and it doesn’t obstruct my view. To me that makes sense.

However, I notice that a lot of people seem to put the SatNav in the bottom middle of the windscreen, directly above the centre console of the dashboard. To me this just seems like a really awkward place, causing you to move your eyes right away from the road, and also blocking the view of a certain bit of road.

So I’m just wondering what other people who read this do.


When I’m Cleaning Windows

All I can say is “Rather him than me“.

Window-cleaning in alligator and snake pens, indeed. In some ways I wouldn’t mind – it’d be interesting, you can at least say that – but at the same time well, I can think of plenty of things I’d rather be doing…


Suddenly Missing

When driving, I’ve noticed there’s something I sometimes find quite distracting. It’s when a car suddenly disappears from the rear-view mirror.

It’s happened a few times recently – and OK, I suppose it’s better than having one suddenly disappearing from in front of you, at least. But it really is quite disconcerting to be driving along, knowing what’s in front and behind, then checking the mirror and it’s a completely different vehicle. Most bizarre – and distracting for a good couple of seconds, if nothing else.

Even worse (in my opinion) is when I’ve overtaken someone on a motorway or dual carriageway, then indicate to pull in and the car I’ve just overtaken has disappeared. That’s really distracting (particularly on motorways) and makes me wonder if the car’s in my blind-spot (which, on an estate car is pretty large) before I spot that they’ve also moved over to the first lane.

It’s just weird and distracting, that’s all.


Cave of Swallows

(via Matt)

This is just fantastic – the Cave of Swallows, a 400m cave in South America. So deep you could hide the Empire State Building in it, and people can BASE jump down into it.

Utterly, utterly mad. And excellent.


Village-wide

In some ways, the village where we now live is very weird. It seems like some things happen in phases all across the village – things like that everyone put up their christmas decorations in the same weekend, or that there was one weekend where simply everyone seemed to be cutting their grass on the same weekend.

This time, it’s even odder – although it’s not as village-wide. But still, I’ve counted at least eight houses near us that have cut down large trees in the last couple of weeks. I’ve no idea why it’s all happening at the same time, why there seem to be these phases, or anything – but still, it’s happening.

All very odd, and it makes me wonder what the next phase will be…


Luck of the Devil

Today, I’ve had to park on the road outside the office, there being no available parking spaces on their forecourt. Not an uncommon occurrence- but the road is all parking-meter type things, where the maximum duration is two hours. A bit of a pain in the tits, but I just set the alarm on my mobile for five minutes before the ticket is due to expire, go down, renew the ticket, job done.

Only of course today I haven’t got the phone with me.

The parking charges start at 9am (which is another good reason for coming in early – if I get in at 7.30 or so, I get 3½hours parking in the morning for my £1.20, rather than the standard 2 hours for the same amount) so the first reminder is at 11am.

With no reminder, I just looked at the clock on my PC and thought “Oooohh, tits” , as it was 11.35. Yep, I’m so going to have a parking ticket. Bugger. Working two days a week it’s actually more economical to drive in, even including the petrol and parking costs, than getting the train. Except when I get a parking ticket. Then all economy goes out the window.

But I get down to the car and lo, no parking ticket. More than half-an-hour over my limit, and nothing. I really don’t know how I’ve managed that, but I’m not going to complain!

Of course, now I’ll go down at 13.40 (the ticket expiring at 13.35) and I’ll have a ticket…